The official blog of the Campaign for the American Reader, an independent initiative to encourage more readers to read more books.

Wednesday, June 17, 2009

What is Donna Jo Napoli reading?

The current featured contributor to Writers Read: Donna Jo Napoli, the award-winning author of many distinguished books for young readers, including The King of Mulberry Street, Daughter of Venice, and the newly released Alligator Bayou. She is also a professor of linguistics at Swarthmore College.

Her recent reading includes a book which prompted this revelation:

I'm writing a book set in India in the 1500s -- and modern books, you might think, would not help me in the least. But I think this book does help because of exactly that -- the steeping in a culture that holds onto ancient ways beside the modern. Also, quite incidentally, the book is riddled with misery -- and I love misery.[read on]